Today’s feature image comes from the second rest day of the 2016 Tour de France.

De Mac

Dunno whether Katusha is seeing a great return upon investment….

donncha

Yep. You’ve got to wonder what they’re spending all their money on. Must be severely overpaying their riders.

Dave

It’s not great but it’s not the worst bang/buck ratio either. Kristoff had an amazing run for them last year, and Zakarin has been reasonably good despite his complete lack of bike handling skills.

Assuming a large slice of their budget goes on Kristoff’s salary, that’s acceptable as he’s a sprinter and was due an average year after two absolutely brilliant ones. Sprinters generally only get sacked once they go for two consecutive poor years, e.g. Etixx dropping Cav in last year’s transfer season.

donncha

They’re hardly paying Kristoff as much as Tinkoff are paying Sagan? Even if they are Tinkoff also have Contador on the books, whereas Katusha have no-one even close to that level (JRod wouldn’t command anything close to Contador’s salary).
They have nowhere near the depth of SKY but apparently are spending only 3m less.

Or is it a case of Specialised picking up the tabs for Sagan/Contador so their salaries aren’t included in the Tinkoff budget??

Dave

I definitely don’t think any more than a token salary for Sagan and Contador (because the team has to pay at least the minimum) is included in that €25M estimate.

It’s why Sagan can feel free to sign with whoever he wants for next year, despite theoretically being under contract with Tinkoff.

sket

Anyone know the source of those budget values? I can see some fine print in the image, but it’s unclear

donncha

SKY publishes annual reports, so that’s where their figure comes from. AG2R also publish some financial I think. Not sure about the rest. Probably just word-of-mouth.

sket

I had only seen INRNG’s breakdown of Sky and AG2R so had assumed guess-timations too

Dave

The text at the bottom says they are estimates for the whole team budget, but doesn’t refer to a source.

The infographic is from the sports newspaper L’Equipe.

Nitro

So between them the top 5 teams spend as much as the bottom 14… I guess thats Capitalism at work… somehow

jules

the problem for sponsors is that they want to be on the winning team. of course, not everyone can win. so you end up with a polarised spectrum of big sponsorship at one end of teams that are equipped to win, and small sponsorship at the other where they aren’t equipped to win, but at least the sponsor isn’t coughing up huge money so the general exposure can still work for them.

I suspect it’s a case of going all-in – if you’re going to put serious money down, make damn sure it’s enough to win. which is the Sky overkill philosophy. I agree it doesn’t make for great racing.

The Fashion Police

$$ the only ‘marginal gain’ you need.

Arfy

Should there be a salary cap and/or a total spending cap? Would it make for a better racing spectacle?

Dave

Definitely – to both a salary cap and it improving the racing.

It shouldn’t be a ‘simple’ salary cap though, it should include above-cap exemptions for one marquee signing per team and bonuses for retaining riders to encourage the development of a story that sponsors can get on board with.

Arfy

Interesting point on marquee riders. Maybe this works better if the team has a set salary cap, but external sponsors are not considered part of it?

So let’s say a cap is set for the whole team, with a minimum wage requirement and perhaps a maximum wage cap (to prevent unfair wage structures), but a sponsor like Specialized can contribute external to this agreement with someone like Sagan or Contador. These external agreements would need to have some caveat to ensure they’re transferable and not locked into a particular team, otherwise it defeats the purpose. This way an established marquee rider is likely to stay with a team unless something’s badly upsetting him, it will be the up-and-coming riders who have more incentive to move.

Of course this requires vigilant policing of external agreements by the UCI and perhaps evolution of policy, but that’s the same with many sports looking to level the playing field.

Dave

– Interesting point on marquee riders. Maybe this works better if the team has a set salary cap, but external sponsors are not considered part of it?

No. This is not my new idea, it needs to be kept simple and for cycling to Ctrl+C Ctrl+V from other sports with working salary caps which include marquee player exemptions.

Personal sponsors should only be allowed if they are actually disconnected from the team – sponsoring no more than two riders per team, no name/logo on any team kit/vehicle/website/merch anywhere, and no use of the personal sponsor’s products or services by any personnel other than the sponsored rider. Burden of proof on the team and riders to open their books, on pain of a denied start at upcoming races.

A luxury tax on big marquee rider salaries is also necessary, to ensure that some of the money stays in the sport to prop up the lower-ranked teams and invest in a stability fund to provide a safety net for a team which loses its sponsors to have the riders and staff paid on the minimum salary for up to a year while they hunt for new backers.

It’s not worth the trouble of getting into details though, not when the most powerful man in the UCI hierarchy owns the team with the second-biggest budget.

Laurens

About the Giro Rosa: “with the help of several teams live-tweeting the stages, it was possible for us to follow and report on the event”. Isn’t that part of where the frustration comes from, that you didn’t actually go there or send someone to report either?

Dave

Well done to Peter Kennaugh for pulling a Craig Stevens and withdrawing himself from the British Olympic team to allow Steve Cummings to enter.

All the fault for that stuffup belongs to British Cycling, and none to Kennaugh who would have done nothing wrong if he accepted the place offered.

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